Employer deducting hours to finance new job

RiverStar

Hi all, I hope you can offer some advice.
I've been employed for 3 years as administrator for a national company.
My unit is part of 4 units, however 1 of the units is closing and the admins job there is being made redundant. She currently works a 23.5 hour week, the 3 other admins including myself work 37.5 hrs a week.
To get to the point, yesterday the MD summoned all 4 admins to a meeting. We attended to be told good news and bad news, this being:

1. I'm creating a new post for processing purchasing & sales invoices, hrs 37.5 a week.

2. I've decided to deduct 5 hours out of your 37.5 hrs working week.

3. Preferential interview treatment will be offered to the redundant admin although we are welcome to apply.

4. Other option is to stay on present contracted hrs and he will deduct the 5 hrs from our holiday pay.

In summary, we feel as if our hours are being reduced to accommodate financing a newly created post.

When questioned further about the deduction, he said he deemed that we spent 5 hrs a week invoice processing.

We all agreed (the 3 of us this will affect) that the volume of invoices actually warranted about an hour a week and other similiar duties take about an hour as well so where did he get 5 hrs from and he said he was advised of this amount.

We have never been asked to fill in a timesheet to log out tasks times.

What we would like advice on is can the MD/company do this?
We all have over 3 years employment there.

Either option I listed above is unsuitable as obviously we don't want to lose money (would amount to £2000 a year. and don't want to lose holidays.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, at present, we are not members of a Union but are seriously considering this asap.

Many thanks for reading and advising

:mad:

getmore4less

How much holiday do you get?

Statutory is 5.6 weeks @ 37.5 210hrs

work 46.4 weeks @ 5 is 232

So you would still owe hours.

I would be tempted to let him do the holiday reduction on paper.

Then exercise your right to statutory holiday later in the year.

A contractual reduction in hours of 5 on 37.5 is 13% which may be considered a suitable alternative to a redundancy.

Remember there is the option for bumping which could put any one of you at risk if you could be pooled not just the person that does the job that is going.

RiverStar

Sorry, I hit reply above before i was ready..

At the moment holiday entitlement is 210 hrs, as you say running from April to march.
Its just the one post which is being made redundant and to provide job, we have to reduce our hours. This is what just doesn't sit right with us, since we all work in our respective units and the MD doesn't really have a clue what we do. I don't want a colleague to be out of work, but not at my expense.

I wondered if this was legal and could we be paid off if we refuse to accept these options?

Thanks

getmore4less

Well the option to take holiday off you needs to be done by actualy taking the holiday. so they can't have you work 37.5 and then have less holiday.

Working 32.5 hours and taking 5 hrs holiday every week allthough unusual may actualy be OK, Employers can say when you take your holidays.

I would want to put that past proper legal advice.

reduction on hours, one way to challenge that would be to work under protest and test it through an ET,, the outcome might be that it is OK or you are redundant or considered to have resigned if you then don't accept the change in contract.

You say the MD does not have a clue, so use the consultation period to enlighten him. Best done as a united group(all 4 of you) rather than on your own.

What workload do you currently have, if doing overtime(paid or unpaid) that could be an angle to negotiate. Also if your lose 5hrs but only 1-2hr of work what else will have to not get done or transfered to the new job.

Any location issues with the units or are they all close/same location?

Bottom line is do you want to keep working at this place or get out with a redundancy payment. If someone want so leave that may be a solution.